


It started with a spider

by edgeoflights



Series: In the eye of a hurricane, there is quiet [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Bisexual Character, F/F, Fluff and Angst, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Lesbian Character, Post-Season/Series 07, Post-Season/Series 07 Finale, Spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27632248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edgeoflights/pseuds/edgeoflights
Summary: Clarke and Gaia were both lost in the bleak world that existed post the end of the human race.Somehow, they started to find hope in each other.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin & Madi, Gaia & Clarke Griffin, Gaia & Madi (The 100), Gaia/Clarke Griffin
Series: In the eye of a hurricane, there is quiet [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020384
Comments: 11
Kudos: 26





	It started with a spider

**Author's Note:**

> Part one of a series <3

Two weeks after they’d all rejected transcendence to stay on earth, things were peaceful. Lonely, in a big way, but peaceful. 

They’d established routines, often switching between earth and sanctum as they slowly made a home for themselves. A quick vote was taken to see if what was left of the bunker was an option for them to sleep in, but was answered with a quick, resounding _no._ They ended up making homes for themselves in the large storage containers that once belonged to others in Sanctum.

Octavia, Ash, and Indra often went hunting in the early hours of the morning, and Hope and Jordan began to tend to the vegetable and fruit gardens near sanctum. Clarke and Jackson had tended to everyone’s wounds within the first day, and then they had moved on to helping organize what belongings were left in the vacant spaces left behind by the transcended.

Gaia still hadn’t found her place. She was still lost, unsure of how to help and where she could be useful. Sometimes she helped Niylah create more clothes and nets for fishing, and other times she followed her mother and Octavia to hunt, but lingering feelings of inadequacy as she wasn’t as strong or as fast as Octavia and simply trailed behind; they left her feeling useless.

Gaia floated around among jobs and people, and started to stick to Clarke more as they shared memories of Madi and their histories. 

Often, they’d stay up past the rest, after everyone had left the circle of logs around the bonfire near the bunker and had gone to sleep. The two would stay, sometimes in a comfortable silence, or sometimes they’d just talk. They’d spend the time reminiscing about their pasts and futures.

And sometimes cursing.

“ _Fuck_.”

Gaia looked up from her tattered book on Sanctum’s history of religion to see Clarke perched on the log opposite her, cringing away from something on the ground.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. It’s fine. I’m just, uh, overreacting,” Clarke said as she shifted into a more normal sitting position, though she remained tense and kept looking at the ground.

Gaia blinked at her but didn’t press.

Two seconds later, Clarke made a sound like a dying goat.

“ _Clarke_.”

“There’s a _spider_.” Clarke explained.

“On the dirt, in the forest, yes. Clarke, of course there’s a spider; we’ve seen various bugs in the last two weeks-”

“But, there’s a spider on the ground right _there_ , and it- it’s big, and-” Clarke stood up and started sounding a little like she was hyperventilating.

“Look, it is going to be fine. I will take care of it.” Gaia moved over to where Clarke was pointing and knelt down, seeing a small brown spider. “Oh, aren’t you a little thing? I see ten legs, you’re not quite a spider, are you?” she said to it softly as she collected the arachnid-looking creature onto a stray leaf before releasing it beyond the circle of logs.

She looked up to see Clarke with an odd look on her face. 

“Are you okay?” Gaia asked softly.

“Yeah.” 

Gaia studied her for a moment, before sitting back down near the fire where she’d been reading. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked tentatively.

“I mean, there’s, um, not much to talk about.” Clarke sat back down heavily on the log. “One time, when I was a kid, I was hanging around Wells- remember him?”

“From your stories of your first month on the ground, yes,” Gaia recalled.

“Yeah. Well, this was way before my dad got floated, when we still used to play together. Stuff like hide-and-seek and the likes. Innocent kid stuff. One time, I hid in a storage room near the family cabins. I turned the light off so that Wells wouldn’t suspect me in there, and I waited for him to find me. I sat there for a while, and then,” Clarke took in a deep breath. “I put my hand in something on the floor, and it was- well it felt like a rough towel. Until I shook my hand and it stayed attached, shifting up my arm.” Clarke shuddered involuntarily. “I was in the dark, and they were crawling up around me and they were _everywhere,_ on my face, one in my nose _-_ apparently they escaped the biology lab a few years before and made babies.”

“That must have been traumatizing.”

“Yeah, for a six year old me it was terrifying. For a while after, every time the lights shut off, it was like I was back there, with them swarming my body and crawling into my lungs and suffocating me. And now… it’s way better, but sometimes I see them, and it’s dark outside and I just- it comes back.”

Gaia nodded silently, before adding more wood to the fire, causing the dwindling flames to burn bright, lighting up the area around them. “There. It’s less dark now,” she explained kindly.

Clarke gave her a grateful smile, and sighed. “Madi loved spiders. Well, all small creatures, really.”

“She tried to rescue a one-eyed squirrel.”

“Really?” Clarke looked at Gaia with interest. This was a story about Madi she hadn’t heard before.

“Before Sheidheda, in Sanctum. Some of the younger children were harassing it, putting their feet in front of it’s good eye so it got disoriented and didn’t know where to go. Madi practically yelled at them to leave it alone and released it back into the wild.”

“That sounds like her,” Clarke sighed wistfully. “When she was really little, she taught me how to hunt in Shadow Valley. She didn’t like it, though. When she became older, with the flame in her head… I’m afraid she got too used to killing, just like all of us.”

“She was better than us,” Gaia replied. “She did it out of necessity and, barring when Sheidheda was taking over her mind, almost never.”

“Couldn’t we claim that we were doing it out of necessity, too?” Clarke asked. “I wish she’d never needed to be exposed to this insane world. I wish we could’ve stayed in Shadow Valley forever.”

“I wish I could’ve stayed a child forever,” Gaia admitted. “The world looks different from the eyes of a child. Usually things look better; less scary.”

“Not spiders.”

“Not spiders,” Gaia agreed.

As they exchanged soft smiles full of hope and regret and wonder, both girls couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, somewhere in the mess of shattered worlds and hearts at their feet, they could pick up their pieces just enough to find another person they could share their future with.

Clarke looked back down to the fire. “Do you ever think that I failed her?” she asked in a small voice. “I- I never let her do the things she wanted to, and- and maybe I was being too strict, so she felt she had to rebel, and-”

“She went to Bardo because she was naive and selfless,” Gaia interrupted. “That was never your fault. Clarke, you were a good mother. You made mistakes, yes, but so did we all. Your mistakes arose from your need to protect your child. There’s nothing wrong with that,” Gaia said softly.

“But I could’ve done better,” Clarke said quietly.

“We all could’ve. But we did the best we could with our circumstances, and in the end, everybody was still able to transcend. Clarke,” Gaia looked at her friend seriously, “Madi never blamed you for any of it.”

“How do you know?”

Gaia sighed. “I didn’t know her like you did, but I loved her too. And I could see that she loved deeper than most. Madi loved you and knew that your mistakes and your decisions were meant to keep her safe.”

Gaia could tell Clarke was about to protest, so she threw a twig at her.

“Hey, what-”

“Stop it. You’re beating yourself up over things that have already happened,” Gaia said firmly, before her voice softened. “Madi turned out alright. We miss her, but she’s okay. She’s blissful, and can’t feel pain.”

“Did you feel it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Before you all rejected transcendence. Did you feel that? No pain?” Clarke asked hesitantly.

Gaia studied Clarke’s odd expression and nodded. “For a few moments. It was- like being pure energy. Earthly issues and painful memories felt like small, unnecessary events. Like when you’re on a mountain and everything below seems insignificant from so far away.”

“And that’s how Madi is? She- she doesn’t feel the pain from everything that happened here?”

“She can recall the memories, but yes. She can’t feel it. It’s just- pure elation.”

“That’s good. That’s- that’s good,” Clarke said, visibly relieved. 

After a moment of silence, a twig hit the side of Gaia’s head. “Hey!” she protested.

“Now we’re even,” Clarke said with a small grin.

Gaia playfully glared at her before starting to tend to the fire, feeling Clarke’s eyes on the back of her head.

That night, when Gaia bid a good night to her friend and descended down to the never-closing portal to sanctum, she had a smile on her face for the first time since- well, since before her temporary transcendence.

Clarke, as she sat near the fire, barely even felt the cold biting at her nose and fingers as she ran her hands through her hair absently and thought about how Gaia hadn’t judged her for her fears.

And both girls realized they both had somebody in their corner, even at the end of the world.


End file.
